CentralAmericanThots: Update from the Francises in Honduras

Dear praying friends,

Here is an update from the end of July till now.

We’ve had some great times, with two graduations, a trip to Alubaren in southern Honduras, and evangelism in both Brisas del Bosque and the Colonia Juan Avelar, two of the poorer neighbourhoods of Siguatepeque.

Future plans include beginning a new group of leaders and pastors in the Progreso region, and we are hoping to be able to introduce the First Principles courses in the area of La Ceiba. Lise is looking forward to seeing her group of First Principles students in the Hermon Baptist Church, graduate in a couple of months.

We continue, of course, to have children from the Vida y Libertad Home stay with us on alternate weekends when possible.

Roberto is still with us, when he is not on mission with the army.

In mid August, I made a trip to Alubaren in the south of Honduras, with Josué Claros, to facilitate First Principles class for two days. These pastors are now in their third level, and were studying the Book of Acts. In spite of the educational limitations of most of them, we were able to have some good, thoughtful discussions. Because of the distance, we do a whole book at a time with them, concentrated in two days of class.

Our pastors' class in Alubaren

On August 30^th, our group of eight students, including the pastor, in Nuevo Pacto Baptist church graduated from their first level of First Principles courses. This means that the students, as they continue to follow the second level, will be starting new classes of second generation disciples. The pastor will be facilitating the second level of these courses, and four of the students will be facilitating two new groups. This is my role: to get things started in a church or region, and then let them carry on. I will do some level of supervision according to the need.

Graduating students at Nuevo Pacto church

On September 19^th, a group of 28 students – pastors and church leaders from five different churches in the region around El Progreso, in the department of Yoro, graduated from the first level of courses. They are all committed to starting groups in their churches, while at the same time continuing to study at the second level, which will be facilitated by some of the pastors. There too, I will be doing some supervision. I thought this was going to reduce my amount of travelling. However this group that has graduated is working to get the rest of the twenty churches involved, and want me to start facilitating a new “first generation”. I’m willing to do that, as long as none of these come from their churches, since that must be their responsibility now. A large part of the learning process is doing or facilitating, themselves.

Graduating class in Progreso

A plaque they gave me

The leadership of the Pastors association is attempting to persuade the pastors in the area of La Ceiba to get on board with these courses. If they succeed, it will involve more weekly travelling for me (a five-hour bus trip one way). It is really worthwhile as we see how believers and churches become established and grow in maturity through these courses.

Lise has been facilitating a group in the Hermon Baptist Church, and this group should be graduating in about two months from now. She is getting some of the students to facilitate the class occasionally in the meanwhile.

Lise's First Principles class celebrates a birthday

We spent a morning evangelizing with the Nuevo Pacto Church in the Juan Avelar neighbourhood. While it is easier to approach people in Honduras than it is back home, in these poorer neighbourhoods we find that a lot of the people while not necessarily participating in nay church, insist that they are Roman Catholics. Most will listen politely without showing that much interest. I also spent a couple of afternoons with a group evangelizing in Brisas del Bosque. We saw a couple of people show up for the services as a result. There too we found the same nominal Roman Catholic reaction. We found quite a bit of poverty. There are houses with dirt or rough concrete floors, without running water, etc. In Brisas del Bosque we have a mission rather than a church, although there is a building. It has existed for about 10 years with very little progress. During the past year a couple from the Hermon Baptist church has been running an AWANA program there. (Hermon Baptist Church is the mother church). We are looking forward to seeing Christian, a young engineering student from the Hermon Baptist Church take over as pastor of this little mission. Christian took both my Inductive Bible study course and my Homiletics course, and is now following the third level of First Principles. With that, he already has much more theological preparation than many pastors in this country.

Mission in Brisas del Bosque